


I'm In The Wrong Song

by idyll



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-03
Updated: 2007-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idyll/pseuds/idyll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John can't seem to keep a scientist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm In The Wrong Song

John goes through four scientists before the official sit down with General Landry. He's known this was coming since the third scientist filed that complaint against him and he doesn't really give all his attention to the tongue-lashing the General's giving him.

All he tunes in for is the bottom line, which is an official reprimand on his record, and the promise that if he doesn't stop running scientists off then he's not going to be leading anything more exciting than the mining security detail on P3X-015.

Which really sucks because John isn't even sure what he's done to send four scientists running. Well, except that last one, but, really. Even Landry had been on John's side on that one. Kinda.

So, yeah, he's maybe the tiniest bit screwed.

*

A week later John remembers that being "the tiniest bit screwed" is like being "a little bit pregnant." He loses another scientist, who hadn't actually been officially assigned to the team before she quit, which is a step in the wrong direction but also, technically, doesn't violate the ultimatum that Landry issued.

Still, after the quit-before-assigned incident, the review of forty-one dossiers, and thirteen interviews, John isn't feeling all that hopeful. He looks up the 015 mining project and blanches when he reads about the ninety-plus temperatures in the mines he'll be patrolling, then shudders when he reads about the fifteen-and-below temperatures on the surface.

Between the working conditions, the lack of anything that flies or goes faster than ten miles an hour (and those technologically advanced mining carts are for cargo only), and the complete lack of action on 015, John's getting a little nauseous.

He's considering just how to layer his clothing to effectively deal with both sets of extreme conditions when there's a knock on his office door. He finishes making himself a note to pick the brains of a few of the marines already on 015 then calls in his visitor.

"Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard?"

John raises a brow at the Air Force Captain in his doorway, kitted out in her dress blues, and says, "That's what the nifty nameplate on my door says, yeah."

She smiles, tight and businesslike. "I'm Captain Doctor Jane Childes."

John nods. "Okay. And what can I do for you?"

"I'm here for the interview, sir." John stares at her; she stares back. "At 1100." More staring. "You're interviewing me," she finally says slowly, with the kind of forced patience that gives away her impatience. "For the slot on your team. Today at 1100." She glances at her watch. "Which is now, sir."

"Um."

It's not the most intelligent thing to be said, but it's the only thing, because John has no idea who the hell this woman is. She wasn't one of the people whose dossiers he reviewed, and he damn well didn't schedule an interview with her.

For a brief moment Captain Childes' very professional façade cracks and John sees a familiar look of amazement at the stupidity of people in general and him in particular before she schools her expression again.

"I was expected, sir," she says tightly. "My clearance was approved and I was even on the visitor roster when I came here."

That's...interesting. John wonders who set this up and thinks it might have been a joint venture between Carter and Mitchell, who've been on a mission to keep him from being exiled on 015.

"Have a seat?" John offers, finally gathering his wits again. "Sorry. I think someone else scheduled this and neglected to let me know. It's good to meet you."

They shake hands before she sits in a chair in front of his desk, her legs tucked to the side, ankles demurely crossed in deference to the skirt of her dress blues. She's cool and composed, her back so straight that John's spine is protesting.

She has her service jacket with her and when John breaks the seal on the manila envelope a slip of paper slides out before he even looks inside. He sets it on the desk, scanning it absently as he removes the rest of the packet, but freezes mid-motion when his eye catches the signature.

"You know McKay," he says slowly, not looking up from the typed letter with its ostentatiously scrawled signature at the bottom.

"Yes, sir. I've been stationed at Area 51 for the past six months and I've worked directly with Dr. McKay that entire time."

"Oh," John says faintly and blinks the letter into focus again. Bits and pieces stick with him as he reads through it: _somewhat talented engineer_ and _higher than moderate intelligence_ and _slightly above par critical thinking skills_ and _doesn't cry like a baby in a crisis_ and _a slight attitude problem_ and _would make a passable addition to Lt. Col. Sheppard's team_.

"The spot's yours if you want it," John says abruptly and lifts his eyes in time to see Childes twitch in surprise.

"Sir?" she says cautiously. "You didn't even look at, uh, anything."

John leans back in his chair and shrugs, and it's only when Childes glances down that he realizes he's pushing Rodney's letter around his desk with two fingers.

"I speak fluent Rodney," John says blandly, "and he spent three years on my team in Atlantis."

*

After Childes agrees and then outperforms all four previous scientists on SG5 on her first mission out, John types up a dozen different emails to Rodney but deletes all of them without sending any.

Rodney and John haven't spoken since about two months after they got back to Earth. There's no concrete reason why, even though it started after a dinner with Elizabeth and Carson, when John and Rodney had gotten drunk at John's apartment, where things went to a place that involved hands, mouths, and dicks. In the morning Rodney was gone before John fell out of bed feeling like a dozen elephants were trampling over his body.

It'd be easy to say that's why they haven't exchanged a word in eighteen months, but it's more complicated than that, and it has nothing to do with drunken sex and all to do with reminding each other too much of what they've lost.

*

John deletes the thirteenth email unsent and doesn't type a fourteenth, but the next day he has a few words with one of his former scientists, who was terrible at fieldwork and has issues that make working in the cramped below-ground labs at the SGC a living nightmare, but is also a brilliant chemist.

John sends Dr. Bailey off with a letter of recommendation addressed to Rodney that consists of two sentences: _Not bad at prime-not-prime, always considers the impossible, and has a really foul mouth. Downside: likes to play "name that chemical compound" a little too much._

He figures Rodney should be fluent enough in John Sheppard to get it.

.End


End file.
